Whales - Folklore | Moby Dick

Famous Whales - Moby Dick

Moby Dick is a timeless tale originating from the mid-19th Century. The book, written by Herman Melville in 1851, formed one of the key foundations of American literature and is still acclaimed as such today. At the time, novels such as The Scarlet Letter and Uncle Tom’s Cabin were also being released, making this a particularly rich era in terms of literary finesse.

The novel was inspired by actual events and characters, making the unraveling tale even more haunting to the reader. In 1820, the Nantucket Whale-Ship Essex was rammed by a Sperm Whale. An adult Sperm Whale can reach lengths of over 20m, making this collision a very serious one. The boat sank almost 4000km from the coast of South America. Only 8 of those on board survived, one of whom was Owen Chase, who later wrote a novel about the event entitled Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwrecks of the Whale-Ship Essex. Melville acquired this novel after arduous searching, and it proved to be a key source of inspiration for Moby Dick.

The second event that continued to water the seed in Melville’s creative dialogue was that of Mocha Dick. Mocha Dick was allegedly slaughtered in the late 1930’s. Most commonly spotted in the waters off Mocha Island in Chile, Mocha Dick was enormous, and his strength instilled fear in even the most brazen of whalers’ hearts. Most notably, he was also albino, a very rare condition for these animals. He was described by those who had had a fearsome encounter with him as being snow white. When he was found dead, his pale flesh still clung to the dozens of harpoons that had been plunged into him over the years. Mocha Dick was notorious for his premeditated attack on ships, despite (and perhaps because of) being shot at over and over again, leaving his body covered in wounds and scars.

Over his many years in the ocean, he encountered and attacked over 100 whalemen. He was particularly easy to identify because of his white colouring. Eventually, the wounds from the many harpoons that struck him also became clear characteristics of the tortured giant. He was first spotted in 1810 and regular reports of sightings continued until the late 1830’s, when he was killed. After that, several more sightings of albino whales were recorded. Most of these animals were hunted and killed at the hands of ruthless whale hunters.

Melville’s book tells the tale of the notorious whale in linguistically vivid and heart-wrenching terms. However, the narrative extends a lot deeper. Moby Dick is about idealism, religion, racism, revenge and politics, among other key themes. The original Mocha Dick made a fundamental contribution to the statements that literature of the 19th Century was allowed to make and the progression that resulted from these.